there could be love
by ABCsoup
Summary: He also remembers, and this is one of his earliest memories, his dad looking at his mom like her smile could make up for all the colors he would never see. So he was pretty sure soulmates had nothing to do with it. Collection of one-shots from a Soulmate AU where everything is black and white until the moment you see your soulmate for the first time.
1. There Could Be Love

_"There could be colors... There could be love."_

_-The Giver_

Scott doesn't like to talk about it very often. Stiles is a different story.

Stiles has been seeing in color since before he could remember. He has already seen his soulmate, perhaps their eyes locked one day on the street and the world exploded in color for them, and perhaps it startled a baby Stiles so he cried and his mother sighed because he was such a finicky baby, and she loved him but she wouldn't mind some peace and quiet every now and then. But she didn't know. She didn't know that her son had seen his soulmate and so the moment was lost forever.

It wasn't incredibly uncommon, especially in a town as small as Beacon Hills, for children to have seen their soulmate at a young age. Technically, soulmates could be born any proximity away from each other, but statistically, they often ended up being close to one another.

The problem that Stiles dealt with, was, since he could not remember the moment his world turned from black and white to color, he could not remember who his soulmate was, either.

In the third grade, there was a girl named Lydia Martin in his class who also saw in color. From that moment on, he was convinced she was his soulmate.

Unfortunately for him, an eight-year old Lydia Martin had no interest in things as petty as soulmates. And in the seventh grade, she met Jackson Whittemore, who had also been seeing in color since he was young.

Stiles was sure one day Jackson's _real_ soulmate would come along and everyone would realize their mistake and then maybe the strawberry-blonde goddess that was Lydia Martin would actually give him a second look and they could live happily ever after.

Honestly, Scott was sick of hearing about it, but he put up with it because he was pretty sure that's what best bros were supposed to do. He knew that if he ever wanted to spend obscene amounts of time waxing poetic about some girl's eyelashes, Stiles would let him.

He couldn't fault Stiles for his lovesickness. Ever since his mother had died, he'd been a little obsessed with finding his soulmate and spending as much time with them as he could. He supposed he could understand Stiles' frantic search if he had had to watch his father try to drink himself into a stupor every night for a year after losing his soulmate. But Scott's parents weren't soulmates.

Melissa didn't like the idea of being forced into a relationship based on anything other than her own free will. She had not met her soulmate. And when she met Scott's father and fell in love, she decided even if she did meet her soulmate one day, her feelings for Raf wouldn't change.

She didn't really count on him turning into a raging alcoholic, but at least she wasn't societally bound to him by some weird soulmate stigma.

So it was just her and Scott. And he was okay with that. Scott wasn't sure how much stock he put into soulmates, but he was incredibly proud of his mom for everything. She was a fantastic mother and no matter what dirty looks got thrown at her, he had never, ever, once faulted her for having a child out of the traditional soulmate-pairing.

Maybe the dirty looks were what put him off from the soulmate idea. He didn't want to be with someone because society thought it should be so. He didn't want to just go with it because it would be easy. He really wanted to be so hopelessly, head-over-heels gone on them that not being with them would hurt. And if that was what meeting your soulmate was, then he could accept that. But he also remembers, and this is one of his earliest memories, his dad looking at his mom like her smile could make up for all the colors he would never see. So he was pretty sure soulmates had nothing to do with it.

The day after another of Stiles' hare-brained adventures was the day everything shifted out of place for Scott. He felt like he was having an out-of-body experience. Everything felt the same, yet different. Every sound seemed to have more depth, everything he touched seemed to have less resistance.

He went to school because he had to. Class was nothing new, but it still felt different.

He looked out the window because there was this ringing and he shouldn't have been able to hear it, but he did. And there was a girl. She was talking. She was walking. He tracked her sounds as they got closer and closer. He shouldn't have been able to do that. Everything was strange.

She walked into the room and it felt like everything shifted back into place, better than before. Because now he knew.

He knew what the color red was and what the color blue was and _he knew_.

His eyes followed her as she sat down behind him. Remembering the conversation he'd heard not two minutes earlier, he made to hand her a pen. And she looked at him, really looked at him.

She was staring at him in wonder, and he knew that she was looking at him in a way that he'd never even seen himself. She could see the exact shade of brown his hair was, the 'cuddly brown bear' color that Stiles had fruitlessly tried to explain to him one bored summer day. And he was seeing her in a way he'd never seen anyone else. How her pale skin wasn't quite completely white; her cheeks still caught some of the pink of her lips. How 'dark' did not necessarily mean thousands of different tints of gray, it could mean a dark green or a chocolate brown, too.

She smiled at him, Allison smiled at him, and he swore that that smile was worth every color in the world. And he knew he was so, so lucky that he'd get to see both.

* * *

**Something new. I know, I forgot I was capable of writing, too. Cross-posting from AO3.**


	2. Love Like Fire

**Ultimately decided to post all my stories from this universe here, for everyone's convenience and the fact that I'm too lazy to fill out new story info every time I want to post a thing. Here's some Claudia Stilinski/Sheriff Stilinski fluff.**

_"__If you're not afraid, there is no end, only an imminent bliss. So burn like love and love like fire."_

_-Iain Thomas_

She laughed like crystals. Sharp, but beautiful. Clear. Fragile.

I saw her outside the police academy. She'd wanted to be join herself, but for her bad knees. So she took up photojournalism and took an internship at the local paper. When her friend decided to cover a small story on the newest wave of recruits at the academy, she jumped at the chance to get an inside look.

I was a new recruit. It was our third day, and I was bone tired. I wanted to go home and sleep, but this bright-eyed, bubbly girl with a notepad stopped me to ask some questions, and she was the kind of person you'd agree to anything for, to save that smile from dropping off her face in disappointment. And the girl next to her had her face behind a camera, taking pictures of everything from every angle. Most of them wouldn't turn out. She was getting bored, she could never focus on anything for long. And then that girl turned suddenly to me and took a picture before I even knew what was happening. I must have looked comical, a surprised expression on my face because she laughed. And then she kept laughing, and she didn't stop. I wondered if I was missing something, if she did this often. But the other girl looked concerned and asked her if she was okay. She only nodded. I didn't understand why until she moved her face out from behind the camera, and I saw her clearly. The colors started flickering in around me, and I started laughing, too.

We laughed until we couldn't breathe, and even then we still kept huffing out little breathy giggles. "I'm Claudia," she said, when she'd recovered enough.

Three days later, two of her photos made it into the paper. One in the police academy story. Another, the close-up of me from that day, in a feel-good story about soulmates meeting for the first time that her friend had wrote after watching us. I groaned, because it was a terrible photo of me, but she swore she loved it the best.

She gave up photography, after that. All the colors distracted her; she could never find the right balance. And she hated the idea of taking black and white pictures on purpose. She thought it was a sin to drain color out of a colored world, to reduce the brilliance of everything to a mere two color combo.

Life with her was always an adventure. I asked her to marry me two months after we met, because she was my soulmate and I didn't see why not.

She said no.

She asked me herself the next morning, after leaving me completely in the dark for twelve hours. Of course, she had to one-up me and made the proposal much grander than mine had been. There were rose petals. When I asked her in exasperation, why she'd told me no earlier, she said it was mostly on principal. She didn't like anyone telling her what to do.

"I wasn't telling you what to do, I was asking, Claudia. That's why it's called a _proposal_."

"Well, it was still kind of implied. Please marry me."

If I was a more stubborn man, I would have said no and asked her again myself the next day, but I already knew her stubbornness knew no bounds- or common sense. If I tried to play that game against her we'd never actually end up engaged, or I'd lose anyway because all I wanted was to marry her. It was better to admit defeat now.

When she found out she was pregnant, she cried and begged for me to quit my job. Being a policeman was too dangerous, she sobbed. She never wanted her child to grow up without a father.

I almost did. But the next day she told me she couldn't be prouder of me and how I couldn't be a better role model for our child.

That girl was a restless whirlwind. I never knew exactly what to expect from her, she kept me on my toes.

God help me if our child turns out like, her, I thought. But I think I also hoped you would. And you did.

* * *

"There's no halfway loving your mother. That's what love should be. Do you understand, son?"

"I do."

"I love you two more than anything," he added.

"You're a better storyteller than her," Stiles told him, with all the earnest a five year old could muster.

"Oh, so you've already heard this story from her?" The Sheriff smiled, only imagining his wife's story. "And what did she say about me?"

But Stiles didn't answer, just ran off, laughing that same crystal laugh.


End file.
